The Senate is the next stop for controversial legislation adopted by the House to provide Mexico $1.1 billion in emergency assistance over three years to help combat drug traffickers along the border.

U.S. Government photo

Guarding U.S. border

The House adopted the White House-backed Merida Initiative on a vote of 311 to 106.

The Houston area’s nine lawmakers split along party lines on Tuesday’s House vote — four Democrats backing the measure and five Republicans opposing it.

The measure emerged from last year’s summit between President Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in the Mexican city of Merida. The plan would provide unprecedented U.S. assistance to Mexico, ranging from military equipment such as helicopters and encrypted communications to law enforcement assistance and training.

The U.S. help is designed to bolster Mexico’s offensive against drug cartels and border gang warfare that have claimed the lives of an estimated 4,000 police officers and other Mexicans over the past 18 months. Calderon has deployed an estimated 30,000 soldiers and police close to the U.S. border.

Democrats backing the measure say Mexico is providing a first line of defense for the United States.

As Houston Rep. Gene Green says: “Whatever Mexico has been doing in their country has been protecting us.” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, also a Houston Democrat, says the measure is in the U.S. national interest.

But some Republicans in the House are balking at the plan.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, wants the Senate to adopt his proposal to evenly divide the proposed spending between Mexico and hard-pressed sheriffs along the U.S. side of the 1,947-mile border with Mexico.

Sheriffs are out financed and outgunned by the drug cartels, says Poe, a former criminal court judge. If a crime is committed by an undocumented immigrant or drug trafficker near the U.S. border with Mexico, “people don’t call the Border Patrol; they call 911, which is the sheriff’s department.”

Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, says Mexico ought to draw upon growing oil revenues to underwrite additional law enforcement efforts and not look to the United States for help.

“It is inexcusable, it is intolerable for us to send one dime to the Mexican government when they can afford to pay for this equipment themselves,” Culberson said on the House floor.

The House plan awaiting Senate action would provide Mexico, Central American nations, the Dominican Republic and Haiti a total of $1.6 billion over three years — including $1.1 billion for Mexico.

For an extended version of this story from today’s print edition of the Houston Chronicle, please click here.